The Role of Mentoring in STEM Faculty Leadership to Broadening Participation in STEM Faculty and Students

Abstract

Mentoring in faculty development is seen as a catalyst to broaden the participation of underrepresented groups in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) leadership. STEM faculty leaders are organizational influencers with or without formal authority or appointments. Within the fields of STEM, mentoring is often construed as more than senior faculty mentoring junior faculty. This study explores the perspectives of 13 professors and chairs at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) on faculty mentoring based on semi-structured interviews conducted by the Center for the Advancement of STEM Leadership (CASL). The main questions addressed in this study are: What, if any, mentoring styles or strategies do STEM faculty leaders acknowledge and employ? What specific leadership styles are associated with mentoring in HBCUs for STEM faculty who acknowledge mentoring as an aspect of their leadership? The findings of this study suggest that STEM faculty leaders who adopt transformational, servant leadership, and intellectual styles find value in mentoring.

How can academic health science centers help to increase diversity in the STEM professions?

“…Effective and nurturing mentors have been well documented to be essential for student success (Gonzales et al, 2021;Alvarez-Berrios and Haynes, 2023). Furthermore, many female faculty mentors self-identify as transformational leaders with positive and strong views on guiding and empowering other women in STEM leadership (Francis and Askew, 2022;Alvarez-Berrios and Haynes, 2023). Our program and others suggest a link between student success and improvements in self-perception including sense of belonging, science identity, and self-efficacy (Connors et al, 2021;Callahan et al, 2022;Erickson et al, 2022;Sims et al, 2022;Alvarez-Berrios and Haynes, 2023;Hess et al, 2023).…”